Acclaimed author Annie Reed has been called "one of the best writers of her generation" and for good reason. She writes in multiple genres, including mystery and suspense, science fiction, thrillers, romance, and urban and contemporary fantasy, along with the occasional story that doesn't fall into any one specific category.

She's a founding member and frequent contributor to the innovative UNCOLLECTED ANTHOLOGY, now in its eleventh year of publishing themed urban and contemporary anthologies three times a year. Her short fiction appears regularly in PULPHOUSE FICTION MAGAZINE; MYSTERY, CRIME & MAYHEM; and THRILL RIDE MAGAZINE. Along with bestselling writer Robert Jeschonek, she's the co-author of the popular Gray Lady series of space opera novels. She currently writes and edits fulltime.

Unexpected Timelines by Annie Reed

Combining tales of alternate history and time travel, this collection by acclaimed, award-winning author Annie Reed includes, for the very first time, the author's complete preferred version of her novella "Comstock," a riveting tale of crime, romance, and the theater set during the height of the silver rush in 1883 in the bustling mining town of Virginia City, Nevada. Readers will also travel in time along with a time travel pioneer about to retire who discovers the sinister reason behind his life's work and a time traveler from the future stuck in the past with his precocious granddaughter.

Rounding out this collection are two more stories from the Old West. In the first, two cowpokes spin a tall tale as only Annie Reed can tell it about an incredible encounter with time travelers from the future. Or did the encounter actually happen? In the final alternate history story in this collection, a determined young widow in the 1800s seeks out the truth behind her husband's horrifying murder.

CURATOR'S NOTE

Annie Reed's exclusive for this StoryBundle features a number of her time travel tales. They vary from light—like "Harley and the Alien"—to serious and historically accurate. Of particular note here is the author-preferred edition of her novella "Comstock." Annie lives in Nevada and her westerns have the sharp edge of accuracy only a true westerner can manage. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

REVIEWS

  • "Annie Reed is considered by many to be one of the best new writers appearing in fiction."

    – Dean Wesley Smith, Editor, PULPHOUSE FICTION MAGAZINE

  • "One of the best writers I've come across in years. Annie excels at whatever genre of fiction she chooses to write."

    – Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award-winning editor and writer of The Fey series

  • "The appearance of a new Annie Reed story is a treat. Try one and you'll be hooked."

    – David H. Hendrickson, award-winning author of “Death in the Serengeti

  • "Annie's writing is magic, seriously."

    – Robert J. McCarter, author of A Ghost’s Memoir series
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Excerpt from "Harley and the Alien"

Harley was named after the motorcycle her momma won from her daddy in a game of chicken.

Until she was ten, Harley thought that meant her momma and her daddy shuffle-danced around each other, flapping their arms like they were wings and making bwack-bwa-bwa-bwack! sounds at each other, until her daddy fell down and her momma got to crow out a victory caw. Harley got somewhat disillusioned—and a little terrified, to be honest—when I told her playing chicken meant her momma rode a borrowed motorcycle straight at her daddy while each of them pointed ten-foot hollow pipes they'd scavenged from a junkyard at each other, like they were knights riding on horses or something.

Well, the story goes that Harley's momma knocked her daddy clean off his hog. Like to put that metal pipe right through his shoulder, and then she muscled his motorcycle up off the pavement and rode on out of town before his boys could catch her.

By then it was too late to undo the lovin' that would eventually become Harley. Even for a woman as tough as Harley's momma, being alone with a baby on the way wasn't easy in those days, so Harley's momma—Maxine was her name—came home to live with her daddy, Big George.

That's me. Big George Wannamaker, and I'm an alien.

Oh, you can relax right now. I'm as human as the next fella, probably more than the next fella. I just don't belong here, precisely.

That don't mean I belong on the other side of that imaginary line that separates the good old U.S. of A. from its neighbors to the north or south, neither. See, I'm just not from this particular time zone, would be a good way putting it. I got stuck here a long time ago, and I learned to make the most of it.

Here is the little plot of land in the middle of a great big dusty, dirty desert my great, great, great grandpappy bought after he got home from World War II. He passed it on to his son, who nearly lost it in a poker game down in Reno, who passed it on to his son, who got killed by some damn fool idiot high on meth when the damn fool high on meth knocked on the wrong trailer door late one night.

Lucky for me, the family line didn't die out with him. Unlucky for my great, great grandmamma, she lost the land to the bank, but it turned out all right in the end. The bank lost the land to the government when the bank went belly up. Since the government lost me, in a manner of speaking, I figured reclaiming my ancestors' land as my own makes a kind of karmic sense.

So there I was, prepared to live out my days all by my lonesome in the land of my ancestors. I didn't intend to start up the Wannamaker line all over again, but I fell in love with Maxine's momma, a pretty woman who didn't mind sleeping with a man who muttered to his wrist using words she didn't understand.

See, I've got a communications whatsamajig under the skin of my left wrist, but the damn thing malfunctioned. That's what stranded me here. Every now and then I checked it, just to make sure, but in the forty or so years I've been in this time zone, nobody ever answered me.